Feeling lost, scared and wanting to fix this. Pt 2

[Turbine]

Hi again. Since you asked, I went back and read through your thread.

Weird - but also somewhat familiar.

So - you were in the Navy? My son-in-law is on the USS Lincoln. He's not intending to go the full time either but it has given him a good trade and future prospects. I presume you met your W while on deployment? I recall a book by Adm. James Savridis that I read recently where he complimented what great wives the Filipinos make.

My wife has been fantastic. Not without flaws certainly. Right now she is focused on all the negatives with some rewriting I'm sure. I had met another lady but it wasn't... right...

One thing that I'm not reading is much about what sort of person your wife is. I'm reading between the lines here. You may not agree and you may not like this, but it is what I can infer from the limited information available.

On the surface she strikes me as an entitled woman who is focused on appearances and has historically been very much in control of you and the marriage. Your financial position sounds troubling yet I also read how your W has a high-end car while at the same time you have large amounts of unsecured debt. At our time of life that can lead to a very difficult transition into retirement.

It may not feel like it, and I certainly disagreed about it on my own situation while going through the absolute h@ll of in-house separation, but you've got a classic cake-eater on your hands. "Sell the house" she says - no consultation - no consideration of what your wishes might be. Give me money "because". I'm offended on your behalf. She has stuff piling up all over the place - and very similarly to my own experience, you are reluctant to / afraid to touch any of it. Meanwhile she gets the full enjoyment of the marriage and marital resources while you get the shaft.

My W said she was/ is depressed and she went shopping. So now there are shoes and clothes in abundance. I don't recall her telling me anything before. I wish I had paid more attention to her. Doesn't help that all she seems to think or imply was that I was only good for $$$ and even that wasn't enough. she was upset that I didn't retire from the Navy. To be honest there are times i wish I had. However my rating was very sea duty oriented and I was on crummy duty rotation when the ship was in port. Not exactly a good family life and I was not happy at my command. A number of plank owners were still attached to the command. More than a few were jerks.

She doesn't want you she says but has lame reasons. Wants a divorce, but is still hanging around some months later. I expect that you have been a pretty decent husband. None of us are perfect. The things she complains about are pretty typical and if they were big enough to cause the break-up of a long-term marriage she would have been gone a long time ago. A number of WAW wait until the kids are grown and out of the house, but they generally have a well executed plan and are gone before the letter from their lawyer hits the floor.

You've not come out and said it explicitly but you strongly suspect the presence of an OM. Her job does make being absent easy to "explain". As an aside - I would suggest getting tested for STDs. If there is an affair, well - people do stupid things like having unprotected sex with relative strangers.

Yes. I think her "reasons" are over inflated. Not completely without merit but I am totally to blame? Not true but at this point getting her to accept any responsibility for this isn't happening. I ignored her. Took my parents side.\ Sided with the kids. Stopped attending church and I lied about getting out of the Navy because I wanted to attend church more. There was some of that. Truth is I was tired of being gone all the time. Not seeing my family or being there for milestones in life. Coming home to a house that had a room reorganized because. The good ol boys club and bending rules for members. I didn't fit in. When my enlistment was approaching the end of contract the councilor or my chiefs never talked to me about reenlisting. Heck the ship was getting ready to go out for 4 to 6 weeks for training. My enlistment would be up in the middle of that. No talk of "Hey Petty Officer Turbine, are you going to reenlist? You have 12 years in. Yeah I know you got busted and we are trying to help you develop career wise. About that school you asked about? Yeah... sorry you aren't valuable enough to send to that. Oh... you want to take some leave? Sorry, you are too important to let go now. "

A wise precaution getting tested. Maybe if she shows any interest in returning to our bed. Yeah before that... talk about a mood killer. "Sweetie... have you been tested for STDs?"
Although she has said there isn't another. She isn't interested in...etc. Yeah believe nothing they say...

In my case, my now ex was what some people call a "branch-swinger". She kept a firm grip on me while working on securing her new wonderful life with her OM. Spoiler alert - it didn't work out the way she expected. During the time when I kept hoping for her affair to burn out, she also had full access to marital resources (used our savings to take OM on a tropical vacation), I made her car payments and most of her stuff was still in the house. I spent my time balling my eyes out and arguing with people here.

Now, I'm not a huge DB cheer-leader. I think that MWD methods probably do work well for many people, but for a lot of us here on the forum, we're generally pretty far down the rabbit hole for that to work. With that said, there have been a number of reconciliations that I've seen here but they are pretty rare.

I am hoping we can R and move on to MR 2.0 but the last few days I am feeling fine with done and gone too. Sad about that because up until this last weekend I was all about getting to a R and MR 2.0

So - what I'm going to suggest is VERY non DB.

Consequences. Called by some here boundaries if you want to DB-ify it a bit.

Right now you are getting walked all over and are accepting that. I get it. I probably still have boot prints all over my back myself.

Have you had a good talk with your lawyer on how the divorce will work out in practical terms? How badly will you be scr@wed over? Will you need to sell the house? How much support will be paid? Does she make enough to be self-supporting?

What about her brother and mother? If she leaves presumably she needs to take them with her.

You also probably want to protect yourself financially. Talk to your bank. See what you can do to ensure that you have your own separate funding available that she can't put her hands on. Don't trust her to not be selfish. See if you can get pre-approved for a new mortgage that will roll up the debts and be under just you. Check about financing for your legal fees - divorce is expensive. Mine was pretty much completely conflict free but I was still out 8 grand.

OK - digest that and then tell me that I'm an idiot and wrong.

Have talked to a lawyer. She stands to loose more and no she doesn't have the income to support herself. I believe she is expecting the money from the house to give her a nice cushion. Especially since she wants to dump the bulk of the bills and debt on me. Not happening. She stands to loose a chunk of her 401K. No alimony for her. Although she makes more a hour than I do so technically I can collect form her... Her mother wants to move back in. Currently living with another daughter and they are renting a room. Its messed up. Yes, BiL move out.

Funds are separate. Paying bills from a joint account that she stopped adding to. She has only paid two things from there and that is all.

No you aren't an idiot or wrong. You are asking questions that I haven't supplied information about before and some I haven't been comfortable asking myself.

You'll also notice that I didn't mention anything about how any of this would bring her back to you. It probably won't. Having to deal with consequences might wake her up though to the fact that she's no longer the boss of you and can't just steam-roll over you.

If you do want a smidgen of hope - and I'm only talking a smidgen - check out Gordie's threads. His wife went through 2 OM, rubbed his face in it, stopped going to church and expected him to be OK with it all. Once he got to the point of ensuring that she knew that things were not going to work out as per her fantasy and was within days of moving in to an apartment, she dropped the OM and her divorce. They're trying to work things out. Gordie is rather a super-hero here for his dedication and devotion.

I started reading Gordie's threads. Read your's too.
Thanks for your take on this. Posting with reads and not a lot of feedback leaves me feeling that I am blindfolded and have my hands bound while navigating a maze. Thanks for lifting the blindfold a little.